‘Hedda’ Review: Tessa Thompson Sizzles In Nia DaCosta Adaptation

Nia DaCosta kicks Hedda Gabler into the 21st century with a sharp adaptation of the classic Ibsen play. Tessa Thompson smirks her way through the updated setting as the titular Hedda, using her dinner party guests like pawns in a real-life game of chess.

Hedda updates the source material from the 19th century to a playful 1950s, and the title character’s lovers are now both female and male. Written by DaCosta, Garbler is also reimagined as a black woman, and former flame Eilert Lovberg is gender swapped to the enigmatic Eileen. The retelling offers a feminist perspective of the original source material, giving Hedda more control over her own story. Despite the wild changes, this retelling feels true to the spirit of the original play. Hedda, at its heart, is still the story of a hedonistic woman who toys with others to detract from her own existential dread.

Hedda turns up the heat as Tessa Thompson dazzles in Nia DaCosta’s sharp and seductive reimagining

We meet Hedda having just returned from her honeymoon with her academic husband George Tesman (Tom Bateman), and she is roaming around the huge country house that neither can afford. Bored as a wife with nothing to do but shoot guns from the rooftop, she throws a party that mixes her wild friends and his academic colleagues. 

Hedda loves parties because she can control them, and she spends the film acting as a ringmaster until it overwhelms her. She can’t control her parents (her father is a general and she is his bastard), her sexuality, and her race (one guest notes she is not as “dusky” as they expected), but she can control her friends.

The party goes awry when Thea Clifton (Imogen Poots) crashes the proceedings, soon joined by her lover/co-author Eileen Lovborn (Nina Hoss). Eileen isn’t just a threat to George’s marriage; her work as an academic in the field of women’s sexual psychology threatens his professional life. Both Eileen and George are up for promotion for the same role, and Hedda uses this as an opportunity to liven up her event.

The plot, in which the couple must woo Professor Greenwood (Finbar Lynch) in the hopes of boosting George’s promotion chances, falls a little to the wayside. He is one of the many characters outside of Hedda and Eileen’s dalliances who gets underdeveloped and pushed aside. Even George feels like a concept of a human, not a fully fleshed person who lives in this world.

Much like the play it’s based on, Hedda takes place over the course of one evening and in one location. The camera tightly holds focus on the partygoers, following them in and out of rooms, the maze, and across the garden lawn. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s dramatic score and Jacob Secher Schulsinger’s razor-sharp editing add to the tension. This tension rises throughout the party as people’s past together spills into the modern-day, and alcohol is poured too liberally. 

Tessa Thompson is at her best as the hedonistic yet aloof Hedda. She delivers cutting and crude lines with a smirk that indicates the actress is having the time of her life in the role. Despite being adapted for the screen, Thompson’s staccato English accent and bold delivery still feel very much made for the stage. She perfectly plays into the mix of rage, seduction, and repression, flashing between all the emotions depending on who she is with. The Hedda greeting guests is visibly different from the woman standing by her husband, and from the woman still mesmerized by her former lover during their private chats.

Nina Hoss is so enigmatic as Eileen, physically demanding the audience’s attention whenever on screen. Eileen is a brash sex-positive woman, avoiding alcohol due to past alcoholism; she is a character too bold for the 21st century, never mind the 1950s. Imogen Poots brings a much-needed delicateness to the love-square, her quiet, sweet-tempered Thea balancing out the brasher two women.

Hedda, for better or for worse, never really loses its stage sensibilities with its heavy use of dialogue. The dense monologues and conversations will not be for everyone, but the writing is smart and funny enough to stay engaging. Hoss and Thompson especially sizzle together, their years of history lighting a spark on-screen.

Hedda’s power lies in how good it looks. Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography and Cara Brower’s production design create a sumptuous world in which you want to spend time. Every scene looks like it has come straight out of a painting and pays great attention to the details.  

Ibsen’s original work played out over four acts, but DaCosta splits hers over five. The impact of the climax of Hedda’s party is slightly dampened by teasing the final act in the opening scene. It is an unusual choice to let the audience know what lingers at the end in the first moment. That revolution should be shocking enough without dangling the carrot over the entire film.

Hedda is a delicious anti-period drama with all the look of your classic BBC drama but with all the sensibilities of a modern drama. It’s a sharply written piece with an excellent leading performance from Tessa Thompson, who delightfully chews the well-lit scenery.

Grade: B

Follow us on MSN for more content like this.